(When) is it okay to be angry? Children and adults’ judgments in China and the United States

Do children and adults endorse anger as a response to unfair treatment? Across two preregistered studies (data collected 2023-2025), 5- to 12-year-old children from China (161 children, 200 adults, predominantly Han Chinese, 50% female) and the United States (159 children, 200 adults, mixed races/ethnicities, 50% female) heard stories describing unequal resource distributions to which the disadvantaged recipient reacted with anger. In Study 1, children and adults in both societies found anger permissible-unless the unequal distribution was decided through a fair procedure. In Study 2, children and adults in both societies judged anger less permissible in response to an unfair authority than an unfair peer. Implications for the role of moral cognition in emotion are discussed.